he other up in her heart together.
And remembering too the sunshine of joy in which she had lately lived,
she humbly confessed that some check might be needed to remind her and
make her know that earth has not the best sunshine, and that any gain
would be loss that turned her eyes away from that best, or lessened her
sense of its brightness.

So there came no shadow over her at all, either that day or afterwards.
The clear light of her face was not clouded, and her voice rung to the
same tune. There was no shadow, nor shade of a shadow. There _was_ a
little subdued air; a little additional gravity, a trifle more of
tenderness in her looks and ways, which told of the simpleness of heart
with which she had quietly taken what God gave and was content with it.

To Mr. Linden the trial was not new, and to sorrow of various kinds he
was wonted; but it was new to him to see her tried, and to that he
found it hard to accustom himself. Yet he carried out his words,--Faith
could feel a sort of atmosphere of bright strength about her all the
time. How tenderly she was watched and watched over she could partly
see, but pain or anxiety Mr. Linden kept to himself. He set himself to
work to make her enjoy every minute. Yet he never shunned the subject
of his going away,--he let her become used to the sound of the words,
and to every little particular connected with it--they were all told
her by degrees; but told with such bright words of hope and trust, that
Faith took the pain as it were diluted.

Before all this had gone far--indeed not many days after the first
telling of his story, Faith had come down as usual one early morning to
her work. She had been down about an hour, when she heard the door open
and Mr. Linden came in. He had two seconds' view of the picture before
she rose up to meet him. There was no lamp yet burning in the room. A
fire of good hard wood threw its light over everything, reflected back
from the red curtains which fell over the windows. In the very centre
of the glow, Faith sat on a low cushion, with her book on a chair. She
was dressed exactly, for nicety, as if she might have been going to
Judge Harrison's to tea. And on the open pages, and on Faith's bright
hair, edging her ruffles, and warming up her brown dress, was the soft
red fall of the firelight. She rose up immediately with her usual glad
look, behind which lay a doubtful surmising as to his errand. It was on
her lips to ask what had brought him